Nightmares
by Christina's Inferno
Summary: "There are certain things they both acknowledge but never talk about. Scars being one of those things, and also nightmares that come with the scars." Inspired by the scene in Iron Man where Tony is tortured.


**Watched Iron Man. Got about seven minutes in. Came up with Science Boyfriends drabblething. Here it is. Apologies, as usual, for the writing style and the fact that it might not really make much sense, because it was written between about midnight and two in the morning. **

**Official disclaimer: I do not, and unfortunately probably will never, own anything you recognize here. **

1.

There are certain things they both acknowledge but never talk about. Scars being one of those things, and also nightmares that come with the scars.

2.

Scars aren't always, truthfully, traditional scars, but they're there. The most obvious one glows blue in Tony's chest and keeps him alive. Sometimes, Bruce will stroke the glass cover, and sometimes the look he gives it is reverent, this beautiful piece of technology that keeps Tony here with him, and sometimes the look he gives it is pained, this awful reminder that Tony is in fact thisclose, was thisclose to death, and sometimes he can't even look at it, because no matter how much a part of Tony is it now, it will always be a reminder of the cave and Yinsen and Afghanistan.

3.

Afghanistan is very real to Tony at night. Afghanistan is to his psyche as the arc reactor is to his body: both a vulnerability and a redemption. When he dreams of it and 'dreams' is such a loose term, because what it really is is remembering while sleeping, reliving, trapped. Again and again and again, until he breaks. There's the car battery and the wires and the water head underwater and he can't breathe can't speak just chokes until he can't fucking breathe.

4.

"Breathe, Tony," Bruce whispers in his ear, holding him close, and he is ashamed that he is so vulnerable so broken behind the facade he displays to the world. Bruce strokes his hair, murmuring things telling him he loves him and he knows that in the morning they'll both have slightly red eyes and they'll try to avoid each other's gaze even as they silently accept that they'll be doing this over and over again.

5.

Again and again, they do this dance, play this horrible game. When it's not Tony, it's Bruce, and that makes it all the worse because it means danger.

6.

Danger, Tony thinks, is something he had always respected, played with, even. Before he met Bruce though, it was a concept, and now that he has Bruce, it's been personified, given to Tony in the form of the person he needs the most, not that he would admit it. He wonders sometimes why Bruce doesn't see it, that the flipside of danger is potential.

7.

Potential doesn't mean much when your strongest memory is of being evil.

8.

Evil. Tony will sometimes use that word when they have sex, the extreme hotlongintense fucking kind of sex, and he won't think about it, and neither will Bruce, but later, when they've both gone to sleep, they'll be confronted by the true meaning of the word, and then it's not Tony but Bruce who has nightmares.

9.

Nightmares are something Bruce has been used to ever since the experiment. Used to it, is of course, not actually being used to it. He's used to the memories of transforming. He's used to feeling trapped inside something he can't control something that itself that kills and maims and destroys everything it touches. In nightmares, Bruce is never human, always a monster and the nightmares are always tinted, ever so slightly, with green.

10.

Green bleeds into his eyes when he's angry, but when he's like this, all Tony sees is brown, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, twisting the in blankets, writhing, fighting with a demon that lives beneath his own skin.

11.

Skin to skin, Tony turns protector, bringing his lips to Bruce's forehead, to the damp curls there, bracing him, holding on to him, talking to him reminding him of the battle in Manhattan and the way he caught him when he was falling from space from the sky and Bruce shakes his head and Tony doesn't know if it's to ward off the dreams or to deny what Tony is saying, that he can be good.

12.

"Good morning" is not a greeting either of them frequently use. Their eyes meet over breakfast across the table brown to brown weary to weary and there's a nod of admission that they are each vulnerable both weak in this one same way and that neither of them would ever consider saying it speaking of their weakness admitting to the other that they do not feel worthy.

13.

Worthy, Bruce thinks, is being in control so he can keep anymore blood off of his hands. Worthy, Tony thinks, is not looking at his hands and seeing the blood he's already let others shed for his ambition. Neither one says this either, but it the is simultaneous guilt the fear the fragility keeps them together because no one else understands this knowledge that your own death might have, at one point or another, benefitted everybody else and made everything better.

14.

Better, Tony realizes sometimes, is this, this camaraderie, sharing space with someone so brilliant to rival his own genius, better is sharing a bed with someone he can love for being his equal, someone who understands unlike anyone else could the nightmares and the sin. Better, Bruce realizes occasionally, is this life where he is not the Other Guy but a scientist, where he is accepted, loved even, despite thing that torments his every hour, awake or asleep, where someone can comprehend that.

15.

That, both of them think, and this sentiment they will both occasionally actually verbalize, is love.


End file.
